Many reasons exist, of course, about why the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX. The offense was efficient, the special teams were brilliant, but the defense? That was special.
Everything 12s were promised when Mike Macdonald was hired to replace Pete Carroll as head coach two years ago has turned out to be true. The new coach was supposed to turn around a once-great defense and make it elite again. He was also tasked with resetting the locker room culture. Mission accomplished.
While it doesn’t take a defensive genius to understand how Seattle is willing to play a lot of its game, J.J. Watt, a future Pro Football Hall of Famer, certainly was succinct in his observation about why the Seahawks specifically won Super Bowl 60. The offense might not have turned the ball over, but it was the Dark Side that shut down the Pats.
J.J. Watt names the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl MVP that should have been
Tweeting after the game when referring to who should win the MVP for the title game (running back Kenneth Walker III took home the award), Watt wrote, “Give the MVP to the whole Seattle defense.”
Give the MVP to the whole Seattle defense.
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 9, 2026
Of course, the NFL doesn’t like to do that. Otherwise, when Seattle destroyed the Denver Broncos 12 years ago, the entire defense would have gotten the award. It went to linebacker Malcom Smith specifically, but probably should have gone to safety Kam Chancellor instead if it was going to go to a single person. The NFL should have awarded it to the entire Legion of Boom.
Walker wasn’t undeserving. He was, for a lot of the game, the only thing really working on Seattle’s offense. The Seahawks finished with 335 total yards, and the running back accounted for 161 of that (135 yards rushing and 26 yards receiving). He also ran the ball 27 times, coming through with arguably the best game of his career at the most important time.
Still, the Seattle Seahawks might not have won the game without the elite level of play that the defense turned in. Until the fourth quarter, which mostly became garbage time after Seattle led 29-7, the Patriots had difficulty even picking up a first down.
Seattle was simply too fast, too aggressive, too well-coached on defense for any team to beat them in the Super Bowl. New England simply had the misfortune of being the one to try. They failed because they ran into one of the best defenses in recent memory.
